I think they should keep both names and just have WLBR be the “enterprise” version.
However, in non-English speaking countries, nobody has an issue with GIMP. And even my very religious and Murican MIL uses Gimp. She doesn’t even know.
If anything, those discussions further the association, as they come up when you google “gimp program sexual” or sth like that.
It’s short for GNU image manipulation program. I mean, you could short it to imp, or rename it to Picture & Image Manipulation Program (PIMP).
I propose Scriptable Image Manipulation Program (SIMP)
SIMPly genius!
Scriptable High Resolution Image Manipulation Program
Scriptable Huge Image Tool
Pimp it is then!
I’m partial to SIMP
It must be something that can’t possibly be construed as sexual innuendo, like Linux Image Manipulation Program (LIMP)…
It’s a GNU program, not a Linux program. It runs on multiple platforms.
eg: the Windows Image Manipulation System
Not the strongest name. Sounds kinda weak.
Maybe “Photographic Image Manipulation Program”?
Windows
Linux
BSD
Ringo (apple)image editor.
Gimp is really just a rare/archaic ableist slur anyway - like to refer to someone with a limp or otherwise a leg/lack of a leg that impedes their gait. I’ve never heard it used in my life.
The sexual usage is from gay bdsm subculture in the 70s that the large majority of ppl who are aware of it are only aware because of Pulp Fiction.
My vote is for pimp
Gimp is really just a rare/archaic ableist slur anyway - like to refer to someone with a limp or otherwise a leg/lack of a leg that impedes their gait. I’ve never heard it used in my life.
I’ve only heard it used that way once in my life. When I was in high school (about 20 years ago), I hurt my leg while playing basketball and was on crutches for a few weeks. This one kid in one of my classes constantly referred to me as “gimp” throughout my recovery.
He saw Pulp Fiction and thought he was clever
Ive heard people say something “was gimped” to mean it was bad, weak, reduced, crippled, etc, so I think it is still common enough near me
The sexual usage is from gay bdsm subculture in the 70s that the large majority of ppl who are aware of it are only aware because of Pulp Fiction.
I had heard gimp/gimpy used to mean “limping or is otherwise gait-impaired” often enough that I assumed the Pulp Fiction character was called the Gimp because of his posture and gait. I was completely unaware of any scene/subculture meaning until reading threads like these.
Full disclosure about my own experience: I am a disabled person who has no strong emotional reaction to the term. I do limp, some days worse than others.
I wonder if it’s a regional thing? I’ve only ever heard it in movies or older TV shows. Where I live people are much more likely to just say “crippled” or describe someone as walking with a limp.
I was confused when I saw Pulp Fiction as a kid because I was like “why is this handicapped guy in a leather suit and what does him being hadicapped have to do with his apparent hobbies” lol. But like I said, never really heard it used in other contexts.
You have to set the WLBR_IS_GIMP env variable to get the new name. So I guess that might be what they going for, at least for now?
I get what you are saying but IMO the old name was hurting adoption. Imagine the headlines if say some city or government announced they are moving to GIMP from photoshop or affinity.
I imagine them being something along the lines of ‘Government organisation X moves from Photoshop to free open source alternative’ or if a journalist is feeling funny ‘Government organisation X moves from paid image manipulation software (PIMP) to GIMP’.
Anyways, I think it’s only a minor issue limited to English speaking countries, and only a issue for people who already have issues
The terrible UI is hurting adoption.
From a name you don’t want to say to a name you can’t say
I think you just pronounce it Wilbur
SFDC, IBM, ADP, KKR MYOB are all similarly unpronouncable as singular words.
I’ve heard of one of these, and IBM has history, brand recognition and rolls off the tongue better.
sfdc (Salesforce dot com) is one of the biggest CRMs in the world and pretty much runs every sales department out there, adp (automatic data processing) is one of the biggest payroll systems in the world.
it’s highly likely you’ve interacted with either or both but maybe in a white-labelled way (e.g. all of Carmax’s computer systems run entirely off Salesforce)
Wait Salesforce has an acroynm?
Everyone I know who’s ever used it just says/writes ‘Salesforce.’
I am now discovering through these replies that seems to be the case. Maybe it’s a regional thing? im in SE USA
NW USA, Seattle area is where most of my dialect/experience is from.
I’ve heard of and professionally used salesforce, and never heard of it referred as SFDC
oh interesting - I’ve worked at 4 companies in 10 years, they all called it that.
same here, but we called it salesforce.
and absolutely everything related to it was called that: salesforce support team == salesforce
salesforce cloud == salesforce
salesforce time share seminar == salesforce
guy who used to work at saleseforce == salesforce.
I will be locking this issue to avoid non-core developers spamming with the same walls of texts about the project name.
Bruno is a very wise man.
I dunno. A wise man would propose a better name.
A man can be wise and still propose a name that some people don’t like. The reason why this man is wise is, he knows what would happen and is wise enough to limit / lock the thread before it happens.
There are names that ‘some people don’t like.’ There are also terrible names. WLBR is both.
Your opinion is one of many. For some the name does not matter, for others GIMP is worse than WLBR. I don’t care what the name is. To me the person Bruno was wise to lock it, because he knew non contributor would spam with their opinion and with history. That is the mark of a wise man. This is my point, not how many people like or dislike the new name. That’s not the point I am making.
At least GIMP could be pronounced nced WTF is WLBR.
Wilbur, IIRC is the name of the mascot.
GIMP being worse doesn’t mean WLBR isn’t bad.
Which is irrelevant to the point I am making.
Yeah I agree. WLBR is the most horrible name ever. Also it reminds me of the WNBR, which is the World Naked Bike Ride… not safe for work either.
How does this have downvotes?
Why not just Wilber? Just like the mascot.
The Linux community can’t let an opportunity for an acronym to go to waste. Even more so for a backronym.
Could have had the recursive acronym KINGIMP (KINGIMP Is Not GIMP) smdh
That’s for the fork with a UI implemented in Qt.
It’s another case of OSPNS - Open source projects names sucking .
Perhaps ‘WiLBeR’ would be a compromise?
Its … basically following what I’m going to call ‘GLaDOS case’ rules.
???
Just sort of seems closer to the kind of silly spellings of robot names in a fair deal of movies and such?
GNU Wilber
It’s not the new name but an alternative. I guess it will have to fit where GIMP does, so it’s better to have the same amount of letters.
It took me reading the comments here to get that it’s pronounced Wilbur. I don’t get why it needs to be an acronym
It’s not open source unless the package name is a scabby dumpster fire.
As in the pig from Charlotte’s Web?
I suppose so. I’d rather they spell it out for simple readability. Like I don’t know what Krita means but easy to read. Kate text editor may mean something, I don’t know. Kdenlive is easy to read. Don’t know what the ‘den’ part is supposed to mean
Apparently it’s “KDE Non-Linear Video Editor”. At least kdenlive is easy to read in my opinion
Krita means crayon in Swedish. Also “Rita” means to draw, so the name is well fitting for us.
And that’s exactly why it’s called Krita. Also it was previously called ‘Krayon’, so they just kind of kept the name.
I mean corporate names aren’t better meaning wise, they just have WAY more marketing behind them so they sound natural by virtue of being in your face until you capitulate.
What does 10^100 have to do with search engines? Also they spelled it wrong.
What does the biggest rainforest in the world have to do with shopping?
What do slight muscle spasms have to do with streaming?
What does a fruit have to do with shitty locked down phones and computers?
What does a colloquial superlative prefix have to do with taxis and food delivery?
What does the sound of a clock have to do with short videos? And before that it was a plant structure.
What does a reflective finish/coating have to do with web browsing?
All of those are pronouncable words.
WLBR isn’t a word, and the W makes it way too long to pronounce the letters separately in English. And Wilbur sounds old. It’s just not a good name, no matter which way you look at it.They should have gone with Imp.
No it’s the name of the mascot
One of the Wright brothers maybe? Still has nothing to do with image editing though.
And here I was worried they would pick another terrible name.
I propose: WHARGRBL
The sound of a dog drinking from a sprinkler?
Bingo!
GIMP is GIMP. It’s been GIMP for decades, and that name carries history, recognition, and a community that built something genuine. Rebranding it to WLBR feels like throwing all of that away for the sake of optics that most longtime users like myself frankly don’t care about. It’s not progress in any way, it’s unnecessary self-erasure. GIMP works, GIMP is known as such, and GIMP should stay exactly what it is…
Also, WLBR sucks ass as a name. Just call it Glimpse at this point.
LibreOffice managed to dethrone OpenOffice, but many people still call it OpenOffice even after all these years.
Glimpse is already taken by an abandoned fork that simply changed the name.
So if the fork is abandoned then what’s the issue?
Actually… I have quite a negative perception of GIMP. I’m primarily a Linux user, but I just remember it as something that’s either always felt obtuse to use, missing something I need, or sluggish for the more narrow processing I’m trying to do.
AFAIK that perception is more pronounced outside Linux.
I don’t care about a brand either way. But if the GIMP project is ready, I think a “fresh start” to draw in users without any preconceived notions is a good thing.
just another vanity project for some bored dev.
I’ve been around the block a few times when it comes to major name changes like this. The fallout is horrendous. I still shudder about what a shit show the Perl 6 rename was.
The fact that longtime users like yourself can’t see the value in anyone else’s opinion here is pretty on point in my experience with this community.
How is arguing for one side of the issue “not seeing the value of anyone else’s opinion”.
Because to you it’s virtually meaningless other than some weird nostalgia. For schools it’s the difference between a teacher being able to promote the software to 30 kids at a time or not. You may think that’s stupid, so does the teacher, it doesn’t matter.
Since it’s called the GNU Image Manipulation Program, why not pick up the extremely low hanging fruit and call it GNU Imp? It also comes with a free mascot.
It’s easier to search online for WLBR than for Imp. It might occasionally force people to search for the full name “GNU Imp”, which might be a plus.
Other than that, I love your proposal.
I really like the name GIMP.
Is WLBR supposed to be an abbreviation for something? I realize it is a reference to the mascot Wilber, but apart from that?
WNBR stands for World Naked Bike Ride, so it must be something similar!
If we’re going to wildly speculate, hey, isn’t this what we have AI for nowadays?
I asked ChatGPT: “give me ideas what the abbreviation WLBR might stand for if that is the name of a piece of image editing software”. Here’s the result:
🧠 Professional / technical-sounding
- Wide Layer Blending & Rendering
- Workflow Layer-Based Retoucher
- Weighted Light Balance Renderer
- Wavelet-Based Light & Blur Reconstruction
- White-Level Balance & Retouch
🎨 Creative / artistic branding
- We Love Better Retouching
- Wild Light & Bold Retouch
- Wavelength Brush
- Wonder Lens: Blur & Refine
- Whitelight Brush
⚡ Modern / software-product style
- WizLayer Build & Render
- WarpLab: Blend & Refine
- Web-Level Bitmap Renderer
- Workflow Lens & Brush Renderer
- WLB Renderer (treat WLBR as a stylized acronym)
🧩 Slightly abstract (like many real apps)
- Wavelength-Based Rasterizer
- Layered Bitmask Refinement
- Light Balance Reconstruction Engine
- Wideband Luminosity Brush & Retouch
🧠 If you want it to feel like real software naming
Most image tools (like Photoshop, GIMP, etc.) don’t strictly spell out acronyms anymore—they use:
- suggestive tech words (Layer, Light, Render, Brush)
- or abstract brand terms
So something like:
WLBR = “WaveLight Brush & Render”
feels believable without being overly literal.
(end of ChatGPT response)
Out of these, I think “Workflow Layer-Based Retoucher” works best. But interesting that ChatGPT thinks “GIMP” doesn’t “strictly spell out” an acronym anymore, or that “Photoshop” ever did?!
I have been trying to figure that out too and I can’t find anything anywhere. I think I will just keep calling it GIMP.
from bad to worse
from guatemala to guatepeor
I can understand the desire to change it given that the current name is arguably a slur in some contexts, but this is a terrible new name. There was a fork awhile back with this same motivation called “Glimpse” - I really think they should have chosen a name with some continuity from the original, and certainly not what looks to be an initialism (I never would have come to “Wilbur” on my own).
I also would not have come to Wilbur on my own. Gimp is a weird name, but at least it’s pronouncable. Glimpse sounds great to me tbh. A nod to GIMP, but also a sensical name.
Wlbr is abweirf namr but Wilbur would be fine.
Call it GINP… GINP Is Not Photoshop
This is the potentially most ‘linux canon accurate’ name possible, which amuses me greatly, but its also essentially the worst name possible for… normal human people that might use the software, lol.
I take this entire comment as a compliment lol
To be honest, this seems like a stupid fix to a non-issue.
There’s already Latex, and the purists calling it Lateh only make it seem like they know and are ashamed.
Or Uranus being pronounced not as your-anus but urine-us. The “alternate/kid-friendly” option is just plain worse. It also teaches kids certain words are bad, which is a bad idea for a multitude of resons I won’t get into.
I say keep GIMP GIMP, loud and clear. No need to be ashamed, because it isn’t shameful.
Attempting to avoid this absolute non-issue by ingenious pronounciation or rebranding just exacerbates the issue.
It’s called “GIMP” and not “Fuck Me then Go Out The Door”. Wether or not GIMP was a moment of “funny humor” or not is beside the point. The “official” explanation is perfectly belieavable, and therefore suitable enough. Just run with it.
If an idiot asks “Why’s it called like [insert-here]”, just say it’s a fucking coincidence and you don’t care. Call them dirty-minded for bonus points.
There’s already Latex
wait what? Latex is used in tons of non-sexytime things, surely nobody’s raising an eyebrow at that?
amer*cans
The “TeX” part is intended to be Greek though, and TeX predates LaTeX.
There’s already Latex, and the purists calling it Lateh only make it seem like they know and are ashamed.
It’s always been pronounced “Lah-tek” or “Lay-tek” (not “Lateh”). That’s because it comes from Greek where X makes a K sound.
Knuth’s book states plainly that the X sounds like the ‘ch’ in the Scottish word “Loch”. (Or the ‘h’ in hawk-tua for more modern readers.)
Yes. Gimp is the photo editor.
I’d heard some sickos in some place use the word Gimp for something bad. Some sick minority are the last people to listen to about the name of software that’s used world wide by people who don’t know about those sickos.
Which is what the name has not been changed. Put your own house in order.
Not sure if you’re kink-shaming or ableist-shaming.
I’ve only heard the name gimp is used by some in a bad way. I don’t know, nor want to know, what they use it to mean.
Literally no usage of the word gimp is bad, unless your kink shaming or being ableist…
Its just a bdsm term primarily.
Another example is Coq, the interactive theorem prover, named after CoC, an abbreviation for calculus constructions, the type theory on which Coq is based, and the co-creator Thierry Coquand in whose native language (French) coq has no sexual connotation and is simply the word for rooster (male chicken).
I have just now seen on Wikipedia to gather this information that it was renamed to Rocq last year after 41 years.
is simply the word for rooster (male chicken).
As is in English?
Sooo, basically they’re changing the name that’s somewhat bad in English to the name that’s terrible in all languages? Huh.
